


my youth is yours

by dreamclub



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Childhood Friends, Fictober, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, fluff too!!, heavily implied that hyucks parents are awful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 11:02:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16217678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamclub/pseuds/dreamclub
Summary: If there are two things Mark is sure of it’s that being gay is a sin and that he is totally, definitely, 100% not in love with his best friend Donghyuck.Completely sure of.





	my youth is yours

**Author's Note:**

> fictober day six n i hit it w the angst! prompts are ‘they had made a poor job of hiding the damage.’ and ‘original sin’
> 
> i tried to make hyuck like.... the apple. tempting mark to ‘sin’. as a gay this hit close to home :-(
> 
> now, u may be thinking ‘dreamclub, why is ur writing so bad’ and my answer is that (swallows my phone whole and dissolves into the void)
> 
> twit: @redxuxi  
> cc: curiouscat.me/dreamclub

Mark was six. Sheltered from the world, he’d jump if a car honked too loudly; he knew the word of God, and the word of his parents, and that was about it.

His cousin was getting engaged. In his mind it hadn’t been long since he’d seen his extended family, but his Mom kept saying ‘it’s been so long! I missed you!’ so he may have been remembering wrong. Either way, never would have been too soon for the suffocating floral hugs from his Aunt’s and the limp, sweaty handshakes from his Uncle's to crowd in on him at all sides again.

In the midst of the welcoming, another one of his cousins slipped through the door, looking nervous. An unfamiliar boy was plastered to his side, holding his hand tight. Mark had seen his other cousins do that, and his parents, and couples in public, but he’d never seen two boys hold hands.

It looked fun. Sometimes his Mom would have him hold hands with girls in his class for pictures, and she’d pinch his cheeks and call him her ‘little ladies man’, which, yuck. Cooties. But boys were cool and cootie free, so maybe he’d like holding their hands better?

“Mom!” he’d tugged at her sleeve, “I can hold hands with boys?”

Shock filled her face as she looked down at him, open face clouding over with disgust. “Why would you think of that, Mark?”

He pointed to his cousin, who still stood awkwardly in the entryway. Their hands were no longer linked. They stood pressed together, like they’d explode if they were more than an inch apart.

“Pointing is rude, sweetheart,” she said, mouth in a line, and steered him away and into the arms of an Aunt that he was pretty sure just wandered into the party off of the street. He’d never seen her before.

Later that night he’d heard his mother whispering about ‘polluting the minds of children’ and ‘the dirty sin of homosexuality’. Malice had never dripped from her words quite like that before. His cousin was nowhere to be found.

If his Mom, who was sweet and loving and caring, hated boys who touched each other so much, then he would try his best to avoid touching boys.

-

Mark was eight. He liked going to the park, and playing video games, and reading with his Mom. He liked making friends.

“Can we share?” a boy had bounded over to his spot in the grass, pointing at his toy truck. His smile was too wide for Mark to refuse.

“Captain Donghyuck,” the boy said, “Reporting for duty!”

Mark didn’t know if that was what construction workers really called themselves, but he parroted the words anyway, “Captain Mark, reporting for duty!”

The holes in the knees of his jeans tore a little bit more as he plopped down to the ground. Dirty, grass-stained hands grabbed the truck, making little noises with his mouth, running it up and over Mark’s leg.

Even though Hyuck didn’t have any toys of his own, like Jeno who always brought soldiers or Jaemin that had the big pack of crayons, he was still fun to be around. Mark stayed at the park later than usual that night, waiting until dusk when the bugs came out in full swing and the playground went eerily silent to even entertain the thought of leaving.

By that time he was standing below the monkey bars, staring up at Donghyuck. Without fear he’d climbed up, up, up to the top of the red, rusted bars, and sat on top so his thin legs dangled through. The bottom of his shoe gaped open like a smile.

“Be careful!” Mark’d protested, feeling a bit like his Mom.

Hyuck made a shocked face and pretended to fall, prompting Mark to tug at his leg in a half-hearted attempt to bring him down.

When the last of the children left and Mark’s Mother no longer had other parents to occupy her, she came to collect him. Donghyuck jumped from the playset and gave Mark a tight hug goodbye. He was so shocked that he forgot to ask Donghyuck if they could meet up again.

-

Mark was ten. His friends had started to ‘date’, to hold hands and blush after chaste cheek-kisses, but he wasn’t interested. Mostly, he tried to be friendly, and focused on that.

With the dawn of the first day of school, he had more important things to worry about than girls, anyway. If his Mom would make him gel his hair up, what he’d have for lunch, if his teacher would seat him next to someone annoying… The list went on.

Sitting in class, he was relieved that his hair was flat on his head and he had a peanut butter and banana sandwich for lunch. He’d gotten the second row seat closest to the window, and the spot next to him was left empty, because he had arrived early. 

Even after children slowly trickled in, the seat remained empty. Just as the teacher started roll call a boy burst through the door, carrying nothing but a single notebook and a granola bar.

Technically he wasn’t yet late, so the teacher let him sit down without giving him any trouble. She started roll call.

He stared down at his desk until she said, “Lee Donghyuck.”

When he raised a hand she nodded, and he went back to quietly sitting. Something about the name seemed familiar, but he didn’t dwell.

“Lee Mark,” she called, and the boy looked up at him with wide eyes, looking for all the world like he knew Mark. After a second he looked back down at his desk, playing with his hands and shaking his foot. Weird.

After roll call the teacher, Mrs. Seo, had Jeno hand out introduction papers. They’d have to draw a self-portrait and answer typical generic questions like their favorite color and school subject. Boring, but easy.

He dreaded when the actual work would start.

“Hey,” the boy next to him, Donghyuck, said quietly, “Can I borrow a pencil?”

He looked too nervous for Mark to refuse. “Sure. I’m Mark, by the way.”

Even though they’d been called during role call, it only seemed appropriate to introduce himself. Digging in his bag for a pencil, he began to panic because he couldn’t find his pencil case. If he couldn’t find it he wouldn’t have anything to write with, either, and then Donghyuck would be upset that he had lied. He wondered why he cared what Donghyuck thought.

“It’s on your desk,” Donghyuck’s lip quirked into a smile, gesturing at the blue pencil case. Mark blushed and grabbed it, pulling out one of his fancy mechanical pencils instead of a regular one.

He shoved the pencil into his hand, fingers brushing in the process. He felt the butterflies that his friends would describe getting while talking to girls. Nerves. Just nerves. “Here.”

Donghyuck thanked him. Mark muttered something that may have been ‘you’re welcome’. They went back to their own papers.

Though they sat close enough to brush arms, Mark ignored the urge to look over at his paper to see what his self-portrait looked like. Mark’s own was a stick figure with dark graphite hair and a wide smile. When the teacher paired them up to explain their papers to each other, he was equally excited and embarrassed. 

By the time class was over, they’d agreed to sit together at lunch. Mark quietly shared his sandwich and snacks with Hyuck when he said he’d forgot his own at home. Donghyuck fit seamlessly into their group, cracking monotone jokes and laughing so rarely that getting him to smile felt like an achievement.

-

Mark was twelve. He hung out with Hyuck and did homework and accompanied his parents to church.

When he came home from a sermon with tears in his eyes, Hyuck was sitting on his front porch swing, wearing one of Mark’s sweatshirts and reading one of his old books. Mark walked past him and inside, slamming the door behind him, not waiting for his parents.

He didn’t want to explain what was wrong. As soon as he saw Hyuck he couldn’t contain his anger. It overflowed. Bubbled up inside of him. In the car he’d managed to nod with whatever hateful nonsense his Father was spewing, agreed when necessary. 

But lying to Hyuck would be different. And he hated that.

So he ran, and hoped his parents would think they were just fighting. Normally his parents would leave him alone while he showered, the only semblance of privacy he got, so he got in and turned the water to scalding. And he thought, and thought, and thought.

Of Pastor Lee passionately explaining why homosexuals go to hell. Of Donghyuck in his soft, red sweatshirt, which probably still smelled like Mark. Of his parents nodding along to his words. Donghyuck staring intently at the book, invested in the characters like he knew them. His parents making him talk to the Huang girl at church, give her father a sweaty handshake in the pews. Donghyuck’s face lighting up when Mark got out of the car, happiness radiating across the front lawn.

When he got out of the shower his skin was red and steaming. He felt empty. Scrubbed clean.

“Oh!” Donghyuck exclaimed when Mark walked into his bedroom, shielding his eyes. Mark blanched and turned on his heel, letting the door close behind him. 

Not even his own room was safe. Thank God his towel was secure around his waist. Frozen, he stood there for what felt like hours, contemplating changing his name and running away to assume a new identity. Inside his room he heard shuffling; maybe Donghyuck would crawl out of his window and spare them both the shame.

Instead, the door opened, and a tan hand poked out with a bundle of clothes grasped in it. “Here. Sorry. Take these.”

Mark took his sweet time changing in the bathroom, putting on too-tight gray sweatpants and a neon yellow t-shirt from his second grade field trip to the zoo. Hyuck hadn’t given him underwear, and he was partly thankful, because the thought of him rifling around in his drawers was almost too embarrassing to handle.

Unfortunately, Hyuck was still in his room when he returned. Which meant he’d have to explain what was happening. Because, at least according to Hyuck, ‘that’s what best friends do’. Best friends. The term was almost nice enough that Mark felt compelled to spill his secrets to Hyuck.

“Hi,” he said quietly as he entered the room.

Donghyuck was perched on the edge of the bed like he’d never been in the house before. Mark’s sweatshirt was folded neatly beside him. “Hi.”

Mark walked over to the bed, wet hair dripping down his neck and making his shirt uncomfortably damp. Silence filled the room. The mattress squeaked when he sat. Hyuck looked at him, mouth gaping open and closed like a fish on land. Like a fish trying to speak. The visual was almost funny enough that Mark forgot how upset he was.

Hyuck had a weird way of doing that. Merely being near Mark improved his mood. 

“Explain,” Hyuck said, turning around on the bed so he could stare into Mark’s eyes. 

Mark couldn’t make anything up. Couldn’t lie. Couldn’t attempt to be mysterious. He just broke down into tears. Hyuck was so shocked that Mark let him hug him that he didn’t press the issue any further. Just held him and whispered that it would be okay.

It wouldn’t. Still, the sentiment was nice. Mark wondered what his pastor would say if he saw the two of them there, clutching each other and crying, limbs so tangled that it was unclear who’s was who’s. He didn’t break away.

-

Mark was fourteen. He made new friends but stuck with Hyuck, went out on weekends, and joined a dance team.

Friday night and he was sitting at a party, knees uncomfortably held against his chest. Nobody had any alcohol, just sugar rushes and teenage hormones, but they still acted like characters in a cheesy coming-of-age movie. Jaemin ate skittles out of Jeno’s collarbones, Donghyuck ding-dong-ditched the neighbors, and Renjun did aeygo while cursing.

Overall, he was out of his depth. And then he was up next for truth or dare.

“Mark,” Jaemin looked at him with a mischievous glint in his eyes, leaning across the circle to look right at him, “I dare you to play spin the bottle!”

Everyone yelled like he’d just been dared to steal the Mona Lisa or, like, key a car. Sure he hadn’t shown the most interest in girls, but it wasn’t like they were banging down his door. Plenty of people hadn’t had their first kiss, either. So yeah. Vaguely exciting at best. Kissing was no big deal.

And the idea of kissing a girl didn’t gross him out. Not at all.

Mark didn’t even have time to protest before a bottle was shoved in his hand, half-full of water. He tried his best to look like he wasn’t terrified. Because he wasn’t. It was just a kiss. One little kiss. And most of the girls in the circle were pretty, anyway.

“And you have to kiss for a minute!” Jaemin added, pulling out his phone as a timer.

Mark glared and pointed the water bottle at him. “You can’t just add rules!”

“What do you guys think?” Jeno interjected, and the entire circle chorused that it was fair.

So Mark breathed in deep and spun. The bottle went fast, and then slow, and then torturously slow, and then at the pace of a snail until Mark was sure it was going to stop. It didn’t. It kept trailing over and over again, taunting him.

And then it stopped. Cap facing Donghyuck. Donghyuck, who’d lost his baby fat. Who was wearing Mark’s favorite t-shirt. Donghyuck, who shared his bed at sleepovers and laughed at all of his jokes and _only_ his jokes and starred in most of his dreams. Who smiled at him with a shit-eating grin, not seeming at all nervous.

“That’s gay!” someone shouted, and everyone laughed.

Donghyuck’s grin faltered. Mark hoped that meant they wouldn’t have to do it.

“What are you waiting for?” Jaemin asked, and shoved Mark closer.

Everyone chanted ‘kiss, kiss, kiss’, drawing the attention of everyone at the party, sweeping over the entire house until their yelling was louder than the music. Still, Mark could only see Donghyuck. He leaned in, and Mark thought he was going to kiss him first, but instead he said something unintelligible into his ear. When he didn’t answer, he repeated himself.

“I said, we don’t have to do this,” Donghyuck gave Mark an easy way out. But he knew he couldn’t be known as the guy that pussied out of the dare, so he leaned back and grabbed Donghyuck by the neck and smushed their lips together.

It was by no means extraordinary. For the first ten seconds neither of them moved, just tilted their heads to try to situate their noses. Hyuck’s lips tasted like soda and chapstick. Blood rushed so loudly in his ears that he couldn’t hear everyone counting down.

Thirty seconds in and Hyuck put a hand on his shoulder, and trailed it up his neck until it cupped his face. They pulled apart and then ducked back in, and then Hyuck moved, just gentle enough that it barely seemed like any pressure at all. 

Awkwardly, they broke apart when Jaemin’s timer went off, and everyone cheered and made gagging noises and laughed at how awful it must have been to kiss another boy.

Mark exaggeratedly wiped his mouth and pretended like he wouldn’t do anything for a repeat. He vowed to never think of the moment again. His first, and only, kiss with a boy, and it had to be with his best friend.

-  
Mark was sixteen. Hyuck’s parents had kicked him out when his Father heard whispers of him dating a boy and searched through his phone to confirm the rumors.

In the middle of the night he’d walked to Mark’s, backpacks and duffle bags of clothes and trinkets weighing him down, not knowing where else to go. Mark’s parents, who’d grown to think of him as a son, took him in without a second thought. He never told them why he was kicked out.

He told Mark, though. Curled up next to him in bed, sobbing, shaking, using Mark’s blanket to wipe his face. Blurted out, “I’m gay.”

For a moment, Mark didn’t know how to respond. He’d been so conditioned to think it was disgusting that he had to hold himself back from recoiling. He’d been rejecting his feelings for so long that he had to hold himself back from leaning forward.

“Okay,” Mark said, and that was it. 

Tension melted from Hyuck’s body. He laughed. Then Mark laughed, even though nothing was funny. And they continued to crack up, and stop, and look at each other, and laugh again until Mark’s Mom came in to tell them to be quiet.

In the morning it was awkward. Hyuck would be living with him. Really, actually living with him. Mark’s Dad pulled out a blow up mattress so they wouldn’t have to share a bed, and Donghyuck began to keep a toothbrush in their bathroom, and got assigned chores from the family list.

Mark repressed his feelings, as always.

Nothing changed. Everything changed. It was a strange limbo, and Mark found himself wanting to do something, anything. But just because Hyuck liked boys didn’t mean he liked Mark, and _Mark_ didn’t like boys, so there was nothing he could do but wait for the tension to dissipate.

Except it didn’t. One night, two weeks in, Hyuck rolled out of the air mattress and into Mark’s bed. Climbed in and fell asleep. Like it was nothing.

At dinner the next day he put his hand on Mark’s thigh under the table.

While watching a movie he laughed into Mark’s neck. Kissed him on the cheek while they watched the stars. Held his hand when they walked to the store. Hugged him when he complained about being cold. Rubbed his shoulders when he was sore from dance.

And Mark did his best to refuse the affection. Shoving Hyuck away just made him come back with something bolder, infusing more love and comfort into his touch until Mark was so, so tempted to just let him do it.

But he wasn’t gay. Because being gay was gross, and shameful, and only _sinners_ were gay. 

“Do I make you uncomfortable?” Hyuck asked one night, out of the blue, half draped on Mark’s lap during movie night. 

Mark spluttered, and Hyuck took that as an answer, because he started to tease him. Mark cut him off, because panic was blurring his vision. Everything he’d been conditioned to think rose to the forefront of his mind.

“I just don’t want you to think I’m a fag,” Mark blurted, and Hyuck recoiled like he’d punched him. “Because that’s gross.”

Other than that one night, they’d never discussed sexuality. And even then they hadn’t really discussed it so much as had simultaneous breakdowns. But Hyuck knew Mark was religious, so he should’ve been able to put two and two together, right? Mark didn’t hate that he was gay, just didn’t support it. Convinced himself it was unnatural.

He managed to make himself believe what he said. And maybe it’d be easier for Hyuck to hate him like he hated himself than to keep tempting him with something he couldn’t have.

Hyuck’s face was cold as he stood. “Because that’s the worst thing you could be, right?”

He grabbed a pillow and blanket and slept on the couch that night. Mark couldn’t make himself chase after him.

-

Mark was sixteen, two months, and three days. Donghyuck left him a note saying he was looking for somewhere to stay, that he’d made enough money to try to pay someone under the table, that he’d be back at six to collect his things if Mark wanted to leave. Because being by Donghyuck would be gross. And uncomfortable.

Maybe if Mark had gone after him he wouldn’t have left. They could’ve talked it out. Mark could’ve let go of all of his prejudice and terror and finally accepted what had been plaguing his mind since he first touched Hyuck.

But he didn’t, and so he had to make it right.

The morning after their very first big fight, Mark packed them a lunch and headed out to find Donghyuck. Thankfully they’d been friends long enough that he had a few concrete ideas on where he’d be, and as he walked on autopilot he ran over what he’d decided to say in his mind.

An entire sleepless night of dwelling on perfecting words had served him well. He was so eloquent he could deliver a speech. And he planned to. Hyuck was always a fan of grand gestures, fawning over the dramatics. 

When he arrived at the little park by his house, his mind blanked. Donghyuck was sitting in the little gazebo by the lake, knees drawn up to his chest. He had a backpack by his feet and his phone in his hand, scrolling aimlessly.

Not looking for a place to stay. Mark hoped he’d known that he would go looking for him.

“Hyuck,” he tried to yell but it got caught in his throat, carried away by the wind. He tried again, “Hyuck!”

His head whipped up. Mark had bought him the hoodie he was wearing for his birthday, and he swam in it, hood pulled up over his hair. Only a shadow haunted where his face should’ve been. Mark felt nervous, like he was speaking to a stranger.

He looked back down at his phone and curled in tighter on himself.

Over the mulch and the grass, Mark stumbled forwards, tears blurring his eyes. He shouldn’t have been so nasty to Hyuck, not about something he’d been literally kicked out of his home for. Best friends didn’t do that. No matter what Mark was dealing with, he didn’t have any right to lash out on Hyuck. Even if he hadn’t said much. 

What little he had said was awful. And what he hadn’t said after had probably hurt the most.

“I’m so sorry,” he began as soon as he got near the gazebo, rushing up the creaking wooden steps as he echoed himself, “Hyuck, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me, I’m sorry.”

Hyuck stood so fast that Mark almost didn’t expect it, got so close that Mark thought maybe he would hit him. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t punch you right now.”

Tears broke his voice. His fists clenched and unclenched, his jaw tightened and untightened. Mark didn’t know what to say. He deserved the punch. Instead of speaking he stared into Hyuck’s glassy, bloodshot eyes. Neither of them had slept.

Maybe sleep deprivation lead Mark to do what he did next. Maybe possession. Maybe a simple explosion of feelings, of everything that had been building up in him since he first learned the word ‘gay’ was synonymous with ‘sin’ and that what he felt was dirty and disgusting and that God hates faggots.

He leaned in and kissed Hyuck’s trembling lips. It was much better than their brief, fourteen year old smashing of lips. Angrier. Hyuck leaned into it, nipping and biting and crying. Mark didn’t think of where they were, that someone could pull up to the park at any time, that someone from church could even see him.

He didn’t care.

They had made a poor job of hiding the damage. Instead of tender it started out angry until it devolved into something slow and drawn out. Hyuck had been waiting just as long. It felt right.

All he knew was Donghyuck. And that the kiss had been a long time coming. Later, he’d have a talk with him about his ‘feelings’, and it would probably be mushy, and he’d wind up dehydrated from tears. But he’d finally come to terms with things that he’d already been thinking for years, and maybe he’d even get a boyfriend out of it. Hyuck’s lips were just that magical.

-

Mark was eighteen. Hyuck had gotten full academic scholarships to the same college Mark was attending, and they got a small apartment together just off campus. They quietly attended pride and held hands in the dark of movie theatres and hooked ankles under the tables at restaurants.

He wasn’t perfect. Kissing in public happened rarely, and his parents still didn’t know that they were together romantically. But it was so much better of the constant fear Mark had felt for years. So much better.

Hyuck woke up before him and kissed his cheeks and forehead until he woke up, groggily pulling his boyfriend into his chest to stop the assault.

“Rise and shine!” Hyuck sung in his ear, too loud for how early it was. “If you get up now we can get coffee before class.”

Hyuck pushed him until he was nearly off of the bed. Admitting defeat, he swung his legs over and stood on the cold floor, yawning. Hyuck settled into the indent his body had left on the mattress, pulling the covers up over his chin. “Or _you_ could go get us coffee, and I could go back to sleep.”

Mark grabbed one of Hyuck’s legs and pulled him down and out of the bed until he dragged them both down onto the floor together, landing in a heap of tangled limbs and laughter.

How could something so pure be a sin? Something that brought the two of them so much happiness? It’d taken time for Mark to come to terms with himself, but it was so worth it. He wouldn’t trade Donghyuck for being straight, not even if his parents found out and hated him, not if God wouldn’t accept him into Heaven; he’d fight for his love.

Six year old Mark would be proud. He always knew boys could hold hands.

**Author's Note:**

> if this didnt make at least one person tear up i failed as a writer , anyway thank u all for ur support ive seen a few continued names so!! i wouldnt be able do this without getting some form of sweet sweet validation so im glad yall are enjoying this


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